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Trap Damage Mitigation/Avoidance

I've been doing a life without trap skills or evasion, the first time in a long time, and I've forgotten how brutal some of the damage can be on elite. I'm not aware of any consolidated trap-avoidance/mitigation guide, and I think it would be a useful exercise to put one together.

My goal is to have a strategy in place to bypass or survive as many traps as possible, in a full party doing elite (no scaling) without trap skills, on a D4 hit die class with terrible reflex saves.

First off, quest knowledge is of utmost importance to mitigate trap damage, so you can prioritise your buffs. When you know a trap is coming up and you're not sure you can Mario around it, you should buff your hit points:

Note that percentage-absorption gear with different values stack, but not additively. If you have Fire Shield: Cold (50%) and Firestorm Greaves (33%), you would take (1 - 0.50) * (1 - 0.33) = 33.5% of the damage you would have taken, not (1 - 0.5 - 0.33) = 17%.

Traps that do physical damage, rather than force/elemental/poison/etc, are subject to damage reduction and PRR. Therefore, Axeblock/Spearblock/Hammerblock/Invulnerability, Adamantine armour, sources of DR/-, blue PRR gems, and Stoneskin all help. However, multiple sources of DR do not stack: only the best applies. For Heroic levels, Stoneskin is a good bet for 10 DR against traps that hit multiple times; the DR will apply to each hit until the Stoneskin is depleted. [SirValentine, CaptainSpacePony]

Since Update 28, wearing noncloth armour will grant a PRR bonus based on your BAB, provided you have proficiency. You can temporarily set BAB equal to your character level by scrolling Divine Power or Tensor's Transformation. Also, starting with light shields, you will get another PRR bonus with each successively heavier shield type, regardless of proficiency. Light shields and heavier also provide MRR and help when traversing elemental traps. Therefore all characters not confident of their ability to traverse a deadly trap can benefit from having a tower shield when they attempt to cross a trap zone.

Some traps do multiple pulses and you can time your transition between pulses. This also enables healing while you're transitioning (have someone target you as you're going through, or use heal over time pots/Druid regens).

Additionally, you should attempt to get to Jump cap (40) via pots, gear, and Strength buffs, and have a featherfall item ready for swapping. Invisibility is sometimes useful to keep aggro off of you while you're trying to get good positioning.

Much of the above requires UMD if not on a caster, of course.

Many traps' activation zones are larger than their damage zones. This means you can tiptoe up to a known trap location to activate it to see its exact location. Additionally, many trapped levers can be activated safely by grabbing the levers at maximum range (e.g., Cry for Help). If all else fails, you can use a hireling or pet (arti dog, druid wolf, PM skelly) to pull these levers.

Additionally, many traps activate after you run through their damage zone--which means the first person through is safe and the people following have to be careful. [Ithaquah]

There are several different classes of traps.

Retractable Spikes
These are traps that poke straight in and out of floors or walls. They can be blade or spear types.

Typical examples are found in Monastery of the Scorpion (blade), Bounty Hunter (spear), Maze of Madness (both).

Retractable traps do damage only in the split second that they poke out. When they are up, it is safe to run through them, or even jump up and down on them.

Guillotines
Guillotines are sharp blades that slide up and down vertically.

Typical examples are in Faithful Departed, Keeper's Sanctuary.

Guillotines have an upstroke and a downstroke; when the blade is on the way up, it is safe to pass through. When it's going down, you may lose your head.

Some dual horizontal traps can be avoided completely by running down the middle of the hall (e.g., Chains of Flame, Smuggler's Warehouse). Others do not have enough clearance, and you should hug one wall to avoid risking two shots of damage. Characters with "wings" (FvS/Exalted Angel, Monk, Cannith Boots of Propulsion, Draconic Flyby Attack) can easily bypass these blade traps. Other characters can minimise the damage by timing their transitions to enter the damage zone as the blade starts swinging.

Explosions
Explosions usually do elemental or force damage, triggering on the use of an interactable.

Typical examples are in VoN 3, Graverobber, Under the Big Top.

The wheels in Big Top are particularly deadly, doing up to six hits of elemental damage if you are not standing in a good spot. You can cut the damage in half by hopping onto the wheel, pulling the wheel, and immediately jumping/featherfalling straight into the air. This cuts down the damage from six to three hits, which should be survivable with proper buffs. It is also possible to cut down damage by pulling the wheel from the side and immediately moving to stand behind the wheel's supporting post, but this manoeuver is more difficult. (I think I picked up this tip on the forums; can't remember from whom.)

Static Spears
Many sharp objects in a confined space equals lots of potential for pain. Damage triggers when you make contact with the pointy bits.

Typical examples are Crucible (maze horn pit and swim), Cry for Help, Rainbow in the Dark.

Jumping around in them is a virtual death sentence in higher levels. If you fall into a spike pit and somehow survive, you can slowly walk to the exit to avoid further damage.

Mines/Bear Traps
Mines hidden in the ground explode on contact, usually doing elemental damage. Bear traps do damage and immobilise a trapped character who fails a save.

Typical examples are in Undermine and Made to Order.

Mines (and bear traps) can be avoided by jumping over them, but this presupposes knowledge of the exact location of the mines. In Undermine, you can set off charges to destroy a group of mines. In Made to Order, I typically solo (dungeon scaling is in my favour) with elemental protection buffs and jump/featherfall in the trapped hallways, hugging the walls. I find the starting locations of the clumps of enemies/breakables are not generally trapped.

Spell Wards
Found in the Forgotten Realms, spell wards do many types of alignment and elemental damage. They have a no-save slow component, and can additionally paralyse you.

Almost anyone can disable spell wards even if they don't have trap skills. These traps are susceptible to dispel effects, so casters or UMD characters can scroll Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic to slowly lower the ML of spell wards, and eventually destroy them (this also counts toward your trap bonus!). Unfortunately, this still requires someone to trigger the ward, as Dispels cannot target an arbitrary area... they default to yourself if nothing is selected. Mordenkainen's Disjunction also lowers Spell Ward CR (and likely faster), but scrolls are hard to come by, so it will usually be cast from a Wizard's SP pool. [kinggartk]

Trap Plates
Trap Plates, when you step on them, can either trigger a damage effect of some sort, or glue you to the ground.

Typical examples are in Epic Prove Your Worth and Haunted Halls.

I'll be sporadically (very, very sporadically) posting walkthroughs of specific traps people in PuG groups seem to find difficult. Don't hesitate to post your own tips or request a walkthrough of how to avoid a specific trap. I myself am curious if it's even possible to survive the VoN 3 explosion and VoN 4 east lever spikes on an evasionless character!

I would also be very interested in errors or omissions in this original post.

Here's a video of how to avoid the quadruple-blade trap in VoN 5. I trigger the trap by strafing very carefully onto the raised platform--it's still safe to stand there. Notice that the blades cycle predictably and there are two cycles where the bottom three blades are in synch. Starting to run at the beginning of the second triple-blade cycle should ensure you live.

Crucible swim, method where you don't have to make any saves. Buffing your Swim skill helps, but is not required. While this character did indeed have evasion, you'll note "Evade" never appeared over her head.

That being said, you don't have to do a perfect swim even on heroic elite: a whack of HPs and a stack of Cure pots when you make a minor mistake are fine, even with a full party (no damage scaling). Alternatively, you can bring a hireling with res spells on their hotbar (hirelings can cast under water). There is also a valve under the water after the maze room to turn off the flow, but I've never done that method and can't comment on it.

So do the swim next time in your pure cleric in full plate with no reflexes an impress your party!

I've been doing a life without trap skills or evasion, the first time in a long time, and I've forgotten how brutal some of the damage can be on elite. I'm not aware of any consolidated trap-avoidance/mitigation guide, and I think it would be a useful exercise to put one together.

My goal is to have a strategy in place to bypass or survive as many traps as possible, in a full party doing elite (no scaling) without trap skills, on a D4 hit die class with terrible reflex saves.

First off, quest knowledge is of utmost importance to mitigate trap damage, so you can priortise your buffs. When you know a trap is coming up and you're not sure you can Mario around it, you should buff your hit points:

Note that percentage-absorption gear with different values stack, but not additively. If you have Fire Shield: Cold (50%) and Firestorm Greaves (33%), you would take (1 - 0.50) * (1 - 0.33) = 33.5% of the damage you would have taken, not (1 - 0.5 - 0.33) = 17%.

Additionally, you should attempt to get to Jump cap (40) via pots, gear, and Strength buffs, and have a featherfall item ready for swapping. Invisibility is sometimes useful to keep aggro off of you while you're trying to get good positioning.

Much of the above requires UMD if not on a caster, of course.

Many traps' activation zones are larger than their damage zones. This means you can tiptoe up to a known trap location to activate it to see its exact location. Additionally, many trapped levers can be activated safely by grabbing the levers at maximum range (e.g., Cry for Help). If all else fails, you can use a hireling or pet (arti dog, druid wolf, PM skelly) to pull these levers.

There are several different classes of traps.

Retractable Spikes
These are traps that poke straight in and out of floors or walls. They can be blade or spear types.

Typical examples are found in Monastery of the Scorpion (blade), Bounty Hunter (spear), Maze of Madness (both).

Retractable traps do damage only in the split second that they poke out. When they are up, it is safe to run through them, or even jump up and down on them.

Guillotines
Guillotines are sharp blades that slide up and down vertically.

Typical examples are in Faithful Departed, Keeper's Sanctuary.

Guillotines have an upstroke and a downstroke; when the blade is on the way up, it is safe to pass through. When it's going down, you may lose your head.

Some dual horizontal traps can be avoided completely by running down the middle of the hall (e.g., Chains of Flame, Smuggler's Warehouse). Others do not have enough clearance, and you should hug one wall to avoid risking two shots of damage. Characters with "wings" (FvS/Exalted Angel, Monk, Cannith Boots of Propulsion, Draconic Flyby Attack) can easily bypass these blade traps. Other characters can minimise the damage by timing their transitions to enter the damage zone as the blade starts swinging.

Explosions
Explosions usually do elemental or force damage, triggering on the use of an interactable.

Typical examples are in VoN 3, Graverobber, Under the Big Top.

The wheels in Big Top are particularly deadly, doing up to six hits of elemental damage if you are not standing in a good spot. You can cut the damage in half by hopping onto the wheel, pulling the wheel, and immediately jumping/featherfalling straight into the air. This cuts down the damage from six to three hits, which should be survivable with proper buffs. It is also possible to cut down damage by pulling the wheel from the side and immediately moving to stand behind the wheel's supporting post, but this manoeuver is more difficult. (I think I picked up this tip on the forums; can't remember from whom.)

Static Spears
Many sharp objects in a confined space equals lots of potential for pain. Damage triggers when you make contact with the pointy bits.

Typical examples are Crucible (maze horn pit and swim), Cry for Help, Rainbow in the Dark.

Jumping around in them is a virtual death sentence in higher levels. If you fall into a spike pit and somehow survive, you can slowly walk to the exit to avoid further damage.

Mines/Bear Traps
Mines hidden in the ground explode on contact, usually doing elemental damage. Bear traps do damage and immobilise a trapped character who fails a save.

Typical examples are in Undermine and Made to Order.

Mines (and bear traps) can be avoided by jumping over them, but this presupposes knowledge of the exact location of the mines. In Undermine, you can set off charges to destroy a group of mines. In Made to Order, I typically solo (dungeon scaling is in my favour) with elemental protection buffs and jump/featherfall in the trapped hallways, hugging the walls. I find the starting locations of the clumps of enemies/breakables are not generally trapped.

Spell Wards
Found in the Forgotten Realms, spell wards do many types of alignment and elemental damage. They have a no-save slow component, and can additionally paralyse you.

Almost anyone can disable spell wards even if they don't have trap skills. These traps are susceptible to dispel effects, so casters or UMD characters can scroll Dispel Magic or Greater Dispel Magic to slowly lower the ML of spell wards, and eventually destroy them. Unfortunately, this still requires someone to trigger the ward, as Dispels cannot target an arbitrary area... they default to yourself if nothing is selected.

I'll be sporadically (very, very sporadically) posting walkthroughs of specific traps people in PuG groups seem to find difficult. Don't hesitate to post your own tips or request a walkthrough of how to avoid a specific trap. I myself am curious if it's even possible to survive the VoN 3 explosion and VoN 4 east lever spikes on an evasionless character!

I would also be very interested in errors or omissions in this original post.

I've been doing a life without trap skills or evasion, the first time in a long time, and I've forgotten how brutal some of the damage can be on elite. I'm not aware of any consolidated trap-avoidance/mitigation guide, and I think it would be a useful exercise to put one together.

Nice idea for a guide, and nice work on creating it.

Originally Posted by Thalone

I would also be very interested in errors or omissions in this original post.

Traps that do physical damage (Piercing, etc., not Elemental or Force or such) are subject to Damage Reduction. There are a number of sources of Damage Reduction available. One of the best in early or mid-levels is the Stoneskin spell, which grants damage reduction 10/Adamantine.

Originally Posted by Thalone

I myself am curious if it's even possible to survive the VoN 3 explosion and VoN 4 east lever spikes on an evasionless character!

For the VoN4 trap, the first time I tried it, I didn't buff quite enough, and it brought me to -10 on the nose. Once I fully buffed (CL 10 False Life, Rage, STONESKIN!!!), I lived through it. I took 7 hits from it, so Stoneskin stopped 70 of the damage from reaching me. Now, mind you, I was solo, so it'll be worse with a full party.

You mentioned monk earth stance for the extra HP. It is worth noting that's also extra PRR vs physical traps, however, most w/monk stances will have evasion and maybe better off in water stance for improved saves.

Vol Right Side (with spinning blades)

Originally Posted by GlassJaw

Wow, great work.I always have trouble with the spinning blades at the beginning of Temple of Vol, especially the right side. Can all of those really be avoided by jumping?

Yes, they can be avoided easily. Face, and keep facing, the left wall while jumping and strafing (moving sideways) to the right. You can jump through the gap between the 'arches' and the wall. When you get to the middle there is a pillar you need to walk around but there is a shadow or two that you need to kill at this spot too. Then you use the same tactic facing the left wall for the rest up to the chest area. QED, even I think with an average jump score

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